


Eddie Remains Unaware

by Izupie (orphan_account)



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Aged-Up Character(s), Alternate Universe - Creatures & Monsters, Bullying, F/M, Human Eddie Kaspbrak, M/M, Protective Richie Tozier, Werewolf Richie Tozier, a self-indulgent au I'll be honest, did we need another werewolf richie au? no. but did I write one anyway? you betcha, everyone in derry is a monster or creature of some kind, the losers are all in their last year of highschool, werewolf falls in love with the human? uh yes pls, with some exceptions
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-30
Updated: 2020-04-30
Packaged: 2021-03-01 17:55:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23931163
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/Izupie
Summary: The town of Derry is a special place. It's bordered by a powerful enchantment that keeps all of the monsters inside, guarded by a family of monster hunters who reluctantly provide the town with fresh humans to feed from. Sacrifice the many to save the few, right?Sonia Kaspbrak and her son Eddie are the newest family to move to town, unwittingly becoming the newest source of food for the residents - humans don't see anything off about their surroundings at all, so they have no idea what they've moved into.As a werewolf Richie Tozier is an outsider in a town of outsiders; too close to human to be with the monsters, but too much of a monster to pass through the barrier. But his feelings for Eddie are big enough for him to finally do something about getting the hell out of this town, and he's taking Eddie with him. He's just got to navigate how to tell him about the whole werewolf thing first. And how to keep him from being the town's next meal.
Relationships: Ben Hanscom/Beverly Marsh, Bill Denbrough & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak & Richie Tozier, Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier, Richie Tozier & Stanley Uris
Comments: 11
Kudos: 38





	Eddie Remains Unaware

**Author's Note:**

> You ever want to read something really really specific? But then you find out it doesn't exist? And then you have to write it yourself just so you can read it? Yeah.....
> 
> I know the whole werewolf Richie thing has been done so much better elsewhere, but it's just such a good AU don't judge me
> 
> This was mostly inspired by my rewatch of Hazbin Hotel, with a little dash of Hotel Transylvania thrown in there. (Why are all these monster things about hotels?)  
> I hope you find something to enjoy about it?? Lmao this is so self-indulgent omg what was I thinking

Richie dangles his legs over the edge of the school building, kicking his feet into the scorching air, while his fluffy black wolf tail swishes lazily behind him every so often. He sighs as he feels a lethargy settling over his skin in the warmth of the early-summer sun; it glints off his well-worn converse trainers, and he figures he should probably change the laces again, even though he’s enjoying the purple laces against the black the best so far. It goes with his favourite nail paint.

“I wanna tell him, Bill.”

“No.”

“But _Bill_ ,” Richie whines, adding a high-pitched sound into his voice that always works on his mom. His human shaped vocal cords don’t hold the wolf sounds very well, but he’s had years of perfecting this particularly pathetic whine. He nails it.

Bill sighs and rubs at his temples (as if a ghost can get headaches). “No, R-R-Richie. You know it’s n-not safe.”

Richie groans dramatically. His black wolf ears flatten with disappointment and he lies backwards onto the concrete, feeling the rough surface digging into this back even through the bright unbuttoned shirt and t-shirt underneath it. He’s wearing his blue shirt with the dog bones on it, which he figures is kind of on-the-nose, but a part of him is still hoping if he gives Eddie enough hints he’ll go all Bella Swan in _Twilight_ and google it until he arrives at ‘oh boy Richie’s a werewolf’ all on his own.

Right now, Eddie’s not even looking vaguely suspicious that there’s anything weird going on with the town at all. He probably just thinks everyone in Derry is odd and that Richie really likes dogs. Which, well, isn’t untrue. But fuck it all Richie really wants to tell him.

“I just think,” Richie says to the sky, “that the guy deserves to know that the town he moved to is severely fucked up, y’know?” He gestures his hands vaguely in the air.

“You mean you just want to te-tell him you’re a werewolf b-b-because you’ve got a huge crush on him.”

Richie turns his head to give Bill an offended look, but the frown and the crossed arms he was expecting to be met with are now upside down because of Richie’s position on his back, and it makes his usually authoritative stance look kind of silly. The thought makes Richie snort a laugh, which only increases Bill’s disapproving frown further. Next time Bill frowns at him he’ll have to do a handstand. Richie tries not to get distracted with the image of Bill giving him The Look while he’s standing on his hands, but he can’t help himself. Stan would probably just pick him up and flip him the right way with a roll of his eyes. Or maybe he’d just walk off. His eyes would still be rolling though. That’d give Richie a good laugh.

“Rich?”

Bill looks mostly human at first glance, besides the paleness of his skin and the unusually dark circles under his eyes, but when the sunlight is strong like this it just seems to sort of go through him. Just a little. He never casts a shadow either.

Richie thinks that Eddie would like Bill. Everyone likes Big Bill.

“It’s not fair that you don’t get to come to school properly,” Richie grouses.

Bill’s used to random thoughts popping out of Richie’s mouth, so he never hesitates before he moves on to whatever topic he’s jumped to, and he replies with a little laugh. “Th-This again?” His stance softens and a smile replaces his frown. The sunlight seems to shine through him a little more.

“Yeah, but it’s just not fair that ghosts don’t get to go. Like, what, you don’t count as people anymore?”

“Well no, Rich, I’m kind of d-d-deh-dead.”

He always says it like it’s nothing, but his eyes are mournful and sad.

Richie sits up and adjusts his large glasses back into place on the bridge of his nose. “You’re more alive than half of the braindead assholes in this place!” He gestures angrily at the building he’s sat on.

“Um, thanks?”

“You are! Oh man, can you imagine if me, you, Stan and Eddie could all go to classes together?”

“Maybe you’d finally s-sk-skip less of them,” Bill points out.

Richie snorts. “And then I’d definitely be able to tell Eddie about everything… Hmm… how does ‘hey, Eds – so, crazy story, I’m a werewolf, my two best friends are a ghost and a vampire, and pretty much all of Derry is made up of the creatures all you humans think aren’t real. Surprise!’ sound? Too much? Not enough?”

“Sounds l-like he might punch you in the f-f-face.”

“You think?” Richie says, with a chirpy enthusiasm that has Bill shaking his head slowly.

“Ew I was kidding. Why did that m-m-make you perk up like I just threw you a b-bone? I need Stan here to deal with your shit.”

Richie guffaws and kicks his legs out into the air over the side of the school roof again. “The sun sucks for keeping Stan away.”

Bill throws him a half smile and points at the back of his head. “You got duh-d-dirt in your hair.”

“Be a pal and brush it out for me would ya?” Richie says with a British twang to his voice. He’s especially practicing the British Guy Voice because it’s the one that makes Eddie’s eye twitch the most.

Bill laughs loudly. “Asshole.”

Richie grins and shakes his unruly black hair like a dog, then yelps as Bill reaches his hand forward.

“Changed my m-muh-mind, ‘cause you missed a spot.”

“Fuck no! I was kidding – don’t touch me!” Richie laughs as he goes to leap to his feet, but Bill lunges forwards and passes a hand straight through his outstretched arm. Richie groans loudly. “Oh fuck, that feels so gross!” He shudders and shakes his hair again before he flops back onto his back.

“You asked for it.”

\------------

By the time Richie is leaving school he’s already skipped most of his classes for the day and spent them with Bill on the roof.

He jumps down the school steps two at a time and arches his back in the glorious sunshine, his tail stretching out behind him. A small group of girls walk past and one of them hisses loudly, “Ew, smell that? Smells like wet dog!” 

A chorus of laughter honks out as they all pinch their noses and look at him pointedly as they go. One of them is wearing black goggles and has snakes for hair, one of them has green skin and gills, and the other has tiny red mushrooms growing out of her face. Stan would usually tell him to ignore them, but Stan’s not here…

Mushroom-face giggles the loudest, looking back at him over her shoulder, and Richie makes a surprised hissing sound through his fangs. “Oh, hey, look- I don’t know if you noticed, but you got a little something right there. Just, yeah… right… right there.” He motions in a large circle towards his own face and then points at hers with a comically exaggerated wince. 

She practically shrieks in offence and the mushrooms glow an even darker red before she snaps her head back around as her friends drag her away.

None of the kids around Richie acknowledge that he’s even said anything, but Richie chuckles at himself. “Zing,” he says to no one, as the buzz of chatter surrounding him continues as it did before. He adjusts his backpack and hunches his shoulders as he goes to leave.

Except… his sharp hearing picks up a snort and a laugh that he’s starting to know well, and his wolf ears flick towards the sound.

“Eddie?” Richie says aloud, visibly perking back up. He catches the scent of something minty and medicinal just before Eddie pushes past a group of girls with various amounts of horns and lizard-skin.

“Hey, Richie,” Eddie says with a little wave as he gets closer.

Richie’s always torn between being so glad that Eddie can’t see any of the supernatural parts of Derry and wanting to tell him all about it so badly it feels like he can’t breathe.

Eddie weaves around some of the other kids with a frown as they shoulder past him out of the school. Richie’s keen hearing picks up the muttered, “Assholes,” that Eddie says under his breath, (it makes him smile), but he seems to miss the narrowed eyes and whispers the students throw at him as he goes. Richie swallows back the growl in his throat. 

Eddie gives him a small awkward kind of wave again as he makes it to Richie, and it’s at times like this that he’s infinitely glad that Eddie can’t see all the weird shit in Derry because his tail is wagging behind him of his own accord like a human’s pet dog. It saves him from having to fucking swan-dive off the roof of the school in embarrassment.

“Eddie!” Richie says with enthusiasm, opening his arms wide like he’s expecting a hug.

(He wishes.)

Eddie slaps a hand away and snorts. “Uh, no, not a chance. I don’t know where you’ve been.”

“That’s fair.” His arms drop to his sides and he shrugs, while Eddie looks satisfied with that response and Richie’s tail wagging increases in speed. 

Eddie remains unaware.

“So, what’re you doing here anyway? You just come to see me?” Richie asks hopefully, as they turn away from the school and join the crowd. The other kids seem to be keeping their distance from the two of them, or deliberately pushing past them, but neither of them comment on it. 

“No,” Eddie scoffs. “I finally convinced my mom to let me come here instead of home schooling me.”

“What? Seriously? You said there’s no way she’d let you come to school!”

“Yeah, I may have laid it on a bit thick about it being my final year and how my grades this year would shape the rest of my life and how I’d probably get rickets from the lack of vitamin D if I never went outside…”

“Rickets?”

“Well, it worked didn’t it?” Eddie says defensively.

Richie bursts into laughter and nearly pats him on the shoulder, but he stops himself halfway there – so his hand just kind of moves through the air like an idiot – because he isn’t quite sure if Eddie’s reluctance to hug him is because he knows he’s joking (actually only half-joking because he really would like a hug) or because he doesn’t like contact.

Eddie remains unaware.

They get to the sidewalk and Eddie slows down to a halt while Richie looks left and right expectantly. “So, uh, we could- I mean, if you wanted to walk home together, I could-”

“Eddie-bear! Where are you?” 

Richie’s ears flatten down at the trilling voice that assaults his senses from the school entrance, scraping through his skull and making him wince. 

Eddie looks flushed with embarrassment; a bloom of red snaking up his neck and staining the skin under his freckles, but he dutifully turns to the voice and raises his hand in the air. “Over here, ma.”

A woman strides towards them with enough presence and intent that she parts the sea of monstrous school kids in front of her with ease. Richie wonders if she’s secretly some kind of monster herself. He doesn’t know much about Sonia Kaspbrak, except that when they first met she scrunched her nose and looked him up and down with barely concealed disgust, and that was enough to kindle the flame of his dislike of her. The fact that she seems to inspire a kind of timid meekness into Eddie whenever he’s in her presence was the final nail in the coffin between them.

Maybe there was some messed up Derry style magic on her too; so that she couldn’t see how amazing and funny and snarky and brave and full of life her son really was.

Sonia is just as Richie remembers; a large woman in gaudy pink clothing of mismatched shades, disapproval and judgement shining from her beady eyes. She levels her gaze on him just long enough for him to see her expression and then turns her full attention to Eddie beside him. “There you are sweetie. I couldn’t find you amongst all these other children and it made me so worried. You said you were going to wait where we agreed, remember?” she says with a strange sing-song lilt to her voice that makes it feel like something with too many legs is crawling up Richie’s spine. 

“Sorry, ma. I saw Richie and I just came over here really quick to say hello.”

Sonia’s lips purse and Richie can’t help himself; his dislike for her bubbles up into a grin and a wink as he puts on the sultriest voice he can muster as he croons, “Hey Mrs K.”

Eddie looks caught somewhere between panic, amusement and wanting to tell him to fuck off. 

It’s delightful and Richie wants more.

“So good to see you again,” he continues in the same voice.

Eddie looks one more comment away from laughing, crying or punching him in the face, and it fills Richie’s whole body with something warm and affectionate and playful. His tail is wagging powerfully behind him and he adjusts his glasses to try and quell the compulsion to laugh at his own joke.

Sonia scowls, tuts loudly, and grabs Eddie’s hand.

“Bye Eddie,” Richie shouts after him as Sonia drags her son away. “Bye Mrs K!” he adds, cupping his hands over his mouth to amplify his shout. Eddie twists around and throws up a middle finger behind his mother’s back.

It makes him sigh (wistfully) (pathetically) as they climb into her tiny, perfectly shiny little car.

“Oh, you’ve got it b-b-ba-bad,” a voice beside him says.

“My boner agrees.”

“Beep beep, Richie.”

Because his feelings are a joke. (And Richie’s good with jokes.) He doesn’t have a crush on Eddie, it’s just funny to play up to with Bill – like ha ha, isn’t Richie funny because he has a crush on a human.

(Richie’s good with jokes.)

He just wants to be Eddie’s friend. He just wants…

Wants.

(Eddie remains unaware.) 

Richie takes a breath and turns to say something else, hoping that his mouth will supply him with something funny to say even if his brain is currently occupied, but Bill isn’t there.

Richie hitches his bag straps more comfortably on his shoulders and starts the walk home, but he only takes a few paces before he hears a pained gasp behind him. He turns to see a girl on her knees on the sidewalk, short brown hair covering her pale face. Students walk around her. Nobody offers her any help. Richie pauses.

She eventually pushes herself to her feet, other students still ignoring her, or glancing at her with disgust as they pass. Her skin is a ghostly pale that could rival Bill’s, and her eyes are bloodshot and tired looking. There are red dots all over her neck and arms that flash in the sun as she sways forwards on her feet and climbs into a car waiting for her. She has the unmistakable scent of a human.

The car drives away, and Richie turns back to his walk home.

Betty moved to town with her parents six months ago.

How was he supposed to stop Eddie getting like that? 

Humans didn’t last much longer than a year in Derry.

Richie grinds his fangs together as he walks, and he scrubs his hands through his hair and over his ears. No way is he going to let Eddie get like that, even if he has to find a way to break him out of Derry himself. 

He needs to talk to Stan. Maybe Bill’s wrong and telling Eddie about everyone in the town will be the only way to protect him?

Richie diverts his destination to Stan’s house, walking fast.

But he already knows Stan will agree with Bill. He just needs to discuss their options. Have someone tell him not to just grab Eddie and try running through the barrier around the town, because that’ll just zap him dead and get Eddie into even more trouble. And he’d be dead. That too. 

It would be so much easier to keep him safe if he could just explain what’s going on, but even knowing won’t do anything to the glamour over the town. His human eyes will still see everything the same as he does now, so he’ll probably just think Richie’s crazy. 

Sometimes he wonders what everything looks like to Eddie.

He wonders what he looks like.

No ears.

No tail.

No fangs.

When he was a kid, he would sometimes hide his tail behind his back and hold his hands up in front of his ears, so he could imagine that he was a human too. He supposes he looks like that. The ultimate pretend game that he just has to play along with for now, even though he doesn’t want to, and he can’t help the sticky cloying feeling that he’s lying to someone that he considers a friend. But, Richie’s into comedy, right? (Richie’s good with jokes). 

Now he can just participate in the biggest joke of them all: everything in Derry is totally normal.


End file.
